Shaman's Crossing (38 page)

I expected Trist to end the conflict quickly. He was taller and heavier than Spink, with a longer reach. I braced to see Spink go flying and hoped there would be no blood. I think if Trist had ever managed to get to his feet, he would have made short work of my friend. But to my astonishment, once Spink had Trist down, he quickly restrained him. Trist, shocked to be borne down and then held facedown on the floor, first thrashed and then flailed like a landed fish. “Let me up!” he bellowed. “Stand up and fight me like a man!”

To this, Spink made no reply, but only spread his legs wide and tightened his grip about Trist’s neck and one of his shoulders. The smaller cadet clamped on like a pit dog and gripped his own wrists to lock them around Trist’s neck and shoulder while Trist heaved and bucked beneath him, trying to throw him off. Trist’s boots crashed against the floor and he kicked over two chairs as he struggled. Every time Trist tried to pull a knee under himself to come back to his feet, Spink kicked it out from under him. Both their faces were red.

No blows were struck, save for a few flailing and forceless ones by Trist. Watching Spink get a hold on him and then immobilize him reminded me of a battle I had once witnessed between a weasel and a cat. Despite the difference in size, the weasel had quickly dispatched the cat before I could intervene. Now Spink, despite his smaller size, mastered Trist, half choking him. The tall cadet was running out of wind; we heard him wheeze. Spink spoke for the first time. “Apologize,” he panted, and then, when Trist only cursed at him, he said more loudly, “Apologize. Not just for the ink but for the name-calling. Apologize, or I can hold you here all night.”

“Let him up!” Oron cried in a voice shrill as a woman’s. He sounded outraged and distressed. He sprang forward as if to attempt to drag Spink off. I stepped between them and him.

“Leave them alone, Oron,” I advised him. “Let them settle it now or it will plague us all year.” Then I stood where I was to be sure he did so. For an instant I half feared that he’d lift a hand to me; I was fairly sure that if he did, the struggle on the floor of our study room would turn into a full-fledged brawl involving all nine of us, for Caleb had stepped forward to back Oron while Nate and Kort were rallying behind me. Rory looked completely distressed and ready to fight anyone. Fortunately, Oron stepped back, glowering at me.

“Don’t fret about it, Oron,” Caleb sneered at me. “Trist will finish him in a minute. See if he don’t.”

Trist thrashed about more wildly at that, but Spink only spread his weight, set his jaw, and held on as grimly as a terrier on a bull. I saw him flex tighter the arm around Trist’s throat. Trist’s face went redder, his eyes bulged, and he gasped out a foul name. Spink’s face showed no change in emotion but his grip tightened relentlessly, and then, “I give. I give,” Trist wheezed.

Spink relaxed his grip, but not completely. He let Trist draw in a gasping breath before he spoke. “Apologize,” he commanded him.

Trist was very still for a moment. His chest heaved as he sucked in a larger breath. I thought it was a trick and that he would resume the struggle. Instead, “Very well,” he said in a tight, grudging voice.

“Then apologize,” Spink suggested calmly.

“I just did!” Trist spoke into the floor, clearly furious that Spink continued to pin him. I think the loss of his dignity pained him more than the choke hold.

“Say the words,” Spink replied doggedly.

Trist’s chest heaved, and he clenched his fists. When he spoke, it was only words with no sincerity behind them. “I apologize for insulting you. Let me up.”

“Apologize to Gord, too,” Spink persisted.

“Where is Gord?” Rory suddenly asked. I had been so caught up in the drama before me that I’d almost forgotten the other men ringing the combatants.

“He’s gone!” Oron exclaimed. And then, without even a breath between, “He’s gone to report us, I’m sure of it. That treacherous bastard!”

In the stunned silence that followed his accusation, we heard boot steps coming hastily up the staircase. It sounded like more than one man. Without uttering another world, Spink freed Trist and they both leaped back to their places at the study table. The rest of us followed their example. In less than two seconds we were all apparently busy at our studies. Scattered pages and dropped books had been restored. Save for Trist’s reddened face and rumpled appearance and a slight puffiness on the left side of Spink’s jaw, we looked much as we usually did. Spink was blotting haplessly at the spilled ink and ruined book when Corporal Dent and our freckled monitor entered the room.

“What’s going on here?” Dent demanded angrily before he’d even got all the way into the chamber. We made a fair show of innocence as we lifted our heads and stared at him in perplexity.

“Corporal?” Trist asked him in apparent confusion.

Dent gave a furious look to our erstwhile monitor, then glared around at us. “There was an altercation here!” he asserted.

“That was my fault, Corporal,” Spink said earnestly. He looked as if butter would not melt in his mouth. “I’ve made a bit of a mess. Knocked over my ink; fortunately, it’s only my own book and work that I’ve ruined.”

I could almost feel how keen Dent’s disappointment was. He salved himself with “Five demerits for disrupting study time, to be marched off during your Sevday, Cadet. Now back to your books, all of you. I’ve better things to do than come rushing up here to settle you.”

He left the room, and after a disconsolate stare at all of us so meekly occupied, our monitor followed him. We heard him say, “But Corporal, they were—”

“Shut up!” Dent rebuked him crisply, and then, several stairs down, we heard a flood of angry whispering from Dent, interspersed with our monitor’s whiny protests. When he returned to us a few moments later, his freckles were lost in his angry flush. He stared around at us and then said, “Wait a moment! Where did the fat one go?”

We exchanged baffled looks. Rory attempted to rescue us. “The fat one, Corporal? You mean the dictionary? I have it here.” Rory helpfully lifted the hefty volume for him to see.

“No, you idiot! That fat cadet, that Gord. Where is he?”

No one volunteered an answer. No one had an answer. He glared round at us. “He’s going to be in big trouble. Big, big trouble.” The proctor stood, working his mouth, perhaps trying to come up with a more specific threat or a reason why Gord would be in trouble simply for not being there. When he could not come up with anything and we continued to stare at him like worried sheep, he slapped the table. Then, without another word, he packed up the rest of his books and papers and stamped out of the room. Silence held among us. I don’t know about the others, but that was the moment when I realized what we had done. By collusion, we had deceived those in command of us. We’d witnessed fellow cadets breaking an Academy rule and had not reported it. I think our collective guilt was seeping into the awareness of my fellows, for without speaking, the others were closing their books and carefully putting their work away for the evening. Trist was humming to himself, a small smile on his face, as if he were enjoying Spink’s attempt to salvage his book. Spink looked grave.

“You fought like a Plainsman, grabbing and strangling and rolling around on the floor. You’re no gentleman!” This belated accusation came, unsurprisingly, from Oron. He looked both disgusted and triumphant, as if he had finally discovered a legitimate reason for disliking Spink. I glanced at the small cadet. He didn’t look up from blotting ink from his book. It was ruined, I thought to myself, the print obliterated by the soaking ink, and well I knew he had no money for a new one. What was a minor mishap to Trist, little more than an impulsive prank, was a financial tragedy for Spink. Yet he didn’t speak of it. He only said, “Yes. My family had no money to bring in Varnian tutors and weapons instructors. So I leaned what I could from whom I could. I learned wrestling and fighting alongside the Plains boys of the Herdo tribe. They lived at the edge of our holding, and Lieutenant Geeverman arranged for me to be taught.”

Caleb made a sound of disgust. “Learning to fight from savages! Why didn’t the lieutenant teach you to fight like a man? Didn’t
he
know how?”

Spink folded his lips and his face got that mottled look it did when he was angry. But he spoke calmly when he replied, “Lieutenant Geeverman was a noble’s son. He knew how to box and, yes, he taught me. But he also said I would be wise to learn the wrestling of the Herdo. He had seen it useful in many circumstances, and as I did not look to grow to be a large man, he judged it would work especially well for me. He also counseled me that it was a good form to know, for when I only wanted to immobilize someone and not to injure them.”

And that was a sting to Trist’s pride and he was happy to seize on it as an insult. He slapped his last book shut. “If you’d fought me as a gentleman instead of as a savage, the outcome would have been different.”

Spink stared incredulously at him for a moment. Then a stiff smile spread over his face. “Doubtless. Which was why, free to choose my tactics, I chose one that allowed me to win.” He tapped a textbook that had escaped the spill of ink. “Chapter twenty-two. ‘Selecting Strategy in Uneven Terrain.’ It pays to read ahead.”

“You’ve no concept of fair play!” Trist insulted him ineffectually.

“No. But I’ve a good one of what it takes to win,” Spink shot back unrepentantly.

“Let’s go. You’d be better off talking to the wall. He can’t even grasp what you’re trying to tell him,” Oron huffed. He took Trist’s arm and tugged at it. Trist shrugged him off and walked away from the table, his neck flushed. I think Oron’s words had only embarrassed him more.

When Trist slammed the door of his room behind him, the flush of victory left Spink’s face. He looked down at the table and his ruined book in dismay. He put his intact books away and then came back to the table with a cleaning rag to scrub at the ink stain on it. I realized that I was the only one still sitting there. I shut my books and gathered my papers to be out of his way. I closed Gord’s books and set them aside. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. Then he spoke, a very soft question.

“Do you think Gord went to report us?”

His voice was full of dread and pain. I had been so busy with my own thoughts, I hadn’t even worried about where Gord had gone. I considered what must have been going through Spink’s mind: that alone of all his fellows, Gord had betrayed him, by upholding the honor code that we were all sworn to. And if Gord had done so, Spink might very well be sent home from the Academy, for he had, indisputably, struck first. And then the cowardly thought followed: if we all stuck up for Spink and Trist and said there had been no fight, Gord would appear to be the liar. Only he would have to leave.

And there we all were, stretched tight between loyalty to our patrol and the honor of the Academy. Which side would I stay with? Spink? Gord? I suddenly saw that all of us could be expelled over this. I felt weak and sick. There was no possible way to be completely honorable, to keep my oath to the Academy and to keep faith with my friends. I dropped back into my seat at the table. “I don’t know,” I said. And added, “But if he had, surely they would have come up here by now. So perhaps not.”

“Then where did he go? And why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even have any ideas.” Worry crept through me. Where could he have gone? The rule for first-years was clear: evenings should be spent in study and housekeeping tasks followed by an early bed. Although we were not confined to our barracks, there was little to tempt us away from them. The weather was intemperate and walking about the grounds that we traversed several times each day on our way to classes offered little attraction. The physical rigors of the day sapped our interest in visiting the gymnasium in the evenings. Occasionally we had guest lecturers or poets or musicians who performed for us in the evening, but attendance at those events was mandatory and not regarded by any of us as recreational. Nothing like that was scheduled tonight. Surely Gord would not have attempted to venture past the guards at the gates of the Academy. I could only picture him walking by himself about the grounds in the evening drizzle. It was a sad image, and yet I felt little sympathy for him. More than half the evening’s disaster was his fault. If, from the beginning, he had stood up to Trist’s taunting, it would never have come to blows between Trist and Spink. For that matter, I seethed to myself, if he could simply control his appetite at table, he would lose the girth that made him such a target for mockery.

Such were my thoughts as I prepared for my evening’s rest. My bookwork was not complete, and I felt out of sorts about that. I’d probably be punished with extra assignments tomorrow, to be completed over the days off. The others were expecting a fine holiday away from the Academy. I’d looked forward to at least having plenty of idleness. Now even that was taken from me. I sighed as I entered our bunkroom. Natred and Kort were already in their bunks, asleep or pretending to be so. Spink was at the washstand, holding a cold cloth against his bruised face. The night quiet was uncharacteristic of our room, the uneasy silence that followed a fight. It set me on edge.

As I shelved my books, I nudged my Dewara rock off the shelf. I caught it one-handed before it hit the floor, and stood there, hefting its roughness and thinking. Some part of me was aware that I was being unfair to Gord as I fumed at him. It was still easier than being angry with Spink or even Trist. Gord, I thought to myself, was a much easier target for blame. I looked down at the rock in my hand, and for some reason I found myself thinking of all the stones I had left at home in my collection. How many times had I been a potential target for Sergeant Duril? What had he really been trying to teach me with all those stones? Or was I investing meaning in something the sergeant had intended only as a simple exercise in wariness?

I was still holding the stone in my hand when the door to our room was flung unceremoniously open. We all jumped at the intrusion. Nate opened his eyes and Kort leaned up on one elbow. Spink was caught half bent, his fingers dripping a double handful of water halfway to his face. I turned, expecting Gord. It took a moment for me to realize that it was not a cadet officer, but only Young Caulder standing in our doorway. Rain had beaded on his hat and dripped onto our clean floor from his cloak. His nose was red with cold. He had a grinning sneer on his face as he said pompously, “I’m to bring Cadets Kester and Burvelle to the infirmary. Right away.”